You Belong to Me
by AndAllThatMishigas
Summary: Inspired by the song by Jo Stafford of the same title. Lucien has a realization and decides to write a letter.


**You Belong to Me**

Lucien Blake sat in what had become his customary seat at the gentlemen's club in Shanghai where he had been staying for the last month, reading the newspaper. In the morning, he liked to read the local paper, while the afternoons were spent with the London Times. It was the only news he got of the world outside China, and he liked to keep up. It gave him a nice escape from the trouble he'd been having.

It had been a very long time since he had been in China. The last time had been under very different circumstances. But he tried not to think about that. He did his best to focus on Li, on rebuilding a relationship with her. She had very little interest. He went to the boarding house she lived in every single day, hoping to speak with her. He brought her gifts. On days when she refused to see him, he left her letters with explanations and apologies and sincere hopes of their reconciliation. He signed each and every one, _From your father, with love._ The last two weeks, she had agreed to have tea with him. They had stilted conversations. She still wasn't interested in much from him, but at least she would see him.

When he wasn't with Li, he tried to keep his mind occupied. He had very little to do, and he'd never been one for leisure activities. So he sat here with a terrible whiskey and the newspaper, listening to whatever radio station they could get.

Today it was a music station, mostly playing songs from Britain and America that were half a decade old. It was nice to hear English again. He put down the paper to listen to the music, eyes closed in appreciation at the woman's voice singing.

"See the pyramids along the Nile. Watch the sunrise on a tropic isle. Just remember, darling, all the while, you belong to me. See the marketplace in old Algiers. Send me photographs and souvenirs. Just remember when a dream appears, you belong to me."

Inexplicably, Lucien saw Jean's face in his mind's eye as he listened to the song.

"I'll be so alone without you. Maybe you'll be lonesome too, and blue. Fly the ocean in a silver plane. See the jungle when it's wet with rain. Just remember, till you're home again, you belong me!"

Lucien suddenly had the strangest feeling that the song was being sung just for him. Sung by Jean just so he could hear it. Of course, that was silly. But he couldn't help but feel such guilt and longing at the thought of it. Jean, who had been everything he didn't know he needed in the time since his father passed. Jean, who had taken care of him, even when he didn't want her to. Jean, who had proven more capable and clever than anyone Lucien had ever encountered. A beam of light in his dark life, a breath of fresh air in his stale heart, and the must infuriatingly perfect woman in all the world.

And his association with her in the song was so very apropos. No matter where he went, he would always belong to her.

It had been too long since he'd seen her, since he'd been home. They had exchanged a few letters since he'd left Ballarat so abruptly. He hadn't had a chance to say a proper goodbye. He'd behaved horribly, but hopefully she'd taken well to his note. She seemed to bear no ill will in her subsequent letters.

But now, faced with this song of strange kismet, Lucien was struck with how terribly he missed her. Her turquoise eyes were always so sharp. Her full mouth was always quirked into an enticing half-smile when she was pleased with something or else in the most subtle frown when he was acting a fool. For half an instant, Lucien's memory flashed on how she walked, swaying her hips in a manner very unlike a buttoned-up housekeeper. But Jean was so much more than that. She was everything.

Faced with this realization, Lucien went straight up to his room. He sat down at the rolltop desk and took a few sheets of stationary and a pen and began to write.

 _Jean,_

 _I haven't yet made my arrangements, and I'll inform you as soon as I do, but I'm coming home. I've spent more than enough time here. I've done all I can for my daughter for now. I have been away from my practice for far too long. I miss my patients and my work with the police. I miss Mattie and Danny. But most of all, I miss you._

 _In this time I've been away from you, I've had a lot of time to work out some things I always seem to be too busy or too distracted to consider when I'm home. I think I'm in love with you, and I'm terrified. Actually, I know I am in love with you, and I am terrified. Terrified of how to tell you, and terrified of what may happen if I do. Or worse, what may happen if I don't.  
_

 _I haven't felt this way in a very long time. Perhaps ever. I've never had a woman share my life the way you do. I've never had anyone ever take care of me the way you do. And I didn't fully understand it at first, but now I think I do._

 _When I'm near you, I feel as though I can breathe. You make me feel as though everything will be alright. It has been such a long time since I've had any confidence in that thought. But with you, somehow, all things seem possible._

 _I hope that when I return, I can better express to you the depth of my feeling, if you would give me the honor of doing so._

 _All my love,_

 _Lucien_

He read it back and felt a warm bubbling in his chest. He smiled. He read it back once more and tore it up.

Taking another sheet of paper, Lucien rewrote the letter.

 _Jean,_

 _I haven't yet made my arrangements, but I wanted to let you know that I will be coming back soon. I've been away from Ballarat and my practice and my home for far too long. I've done all I can for my daughter here for now._

 _When I know my travel itinerary, I shall send word to you._

 _Hoping you are well,_

 _Lucien_

He folded the page and placed it into an envelope, writing Jean Beazley and the address on the back. He would put it in the post in the morning.

Lucien decided he would speak to Li the next day before going to the travel agent's for passage back to Ballarat. And when he did make it back, he would say all those things to Jean in person. Professions of love should not happen in a letter. After all, he had fallen in love with her from the time they'd spent together. He owed it to both of them to have the courage to say his piece to her face.

Years later, that old song came on the radio and Lucien was transported back to his time in China and his realization that he had fallen in love with Jean Beazley. Looking up, he saw his lovely Jean Blake working on her sewing across the parlor.

Why hadn't he professed his love when she picked him up from the bus station? It was due in no small part to his cowardice, his crippling doubt that anyone as marvelous as Jean could ever love him in return. Running into Joy MacDonald on the bus home had also been quite a factor as well. Joy had been such an unexpectedly exciting addition to tiny Ballarat life. Nothing had ever happened between them, of course, before her tragic death. But even if it had, Lucien knew, as he'd known then, that Joy would never be as special or important as Jean. Strange, looking back, that it had always been Jean.

"Why are you staring at me?"

Lucien's train of thought was interrupted by his wife's voice. "Sorry, love. Just thinking."

"Thinking about what?" she asked.

"How much time I wasted by trying to pretend I wasn't madly in love with you and not telling you every moment of every day once I'd figured it out."

She gave that half-smile he loved so much. "Yes, that was rather foolish of you, wasn't it? But I suppose it all worked out in the end. We're here now."

"Quite."

"If that's all, I'm going to go back to my sewing now."

"Of course."

He continued to watch her mending one of his suit jackets. Perhaps it was all for the best that things had worked out as they did. Lucien wouldn't trade their life or their memories or their story for anything in the world. But maybe, just maybe, he shouldn't have torn up that first letter. It would have been a nice thing to show her now, that even all those years ago, he belonged to her.


End file.
